The Causes of Rural to Urban Migration Among the Poor. Final Report, March 1970.

Hamilton, William L.; And Others

Focusing on individual decisions, the study examined why the rural poor migrated to urban areas. Rural-to-urban migrants were those persons having lived in places of less than 25,000 population and currently residing in major cities. Southeastern blacks, Appalachian whites, and Southwestern Spanish Americans were interviewed in two "destination" cities and eight "origin" counties in the Southeast, Appalachian, and Southwest migrant streams. Interviews with 300 migrants living in low-income neighborhoods of cities and with 300 rural dwellers in households considered poor by local residents were obtained for each of the streams. Data were obtained on the individual's background, the history of moves he had made, characteristics of those moves, his experience in the labor market in rural areas; the reasons reported as important to the decision to migrate or not migrate; and the individual's perceptions and attitudes, particularly his perception of problems in the rural areas and comparisons between urban and rural areas. Also each county named by an individual as a residence was described in terms of published data items, e.g., population, employment rates, distance from a metropolitan area. Findings included: economic reasons were given by a majority of migrants; agricultural displacement was strongly correlated with migration; successful occupational mobility out of agriculture was correlated with non-migration; perception of better urban housing and education was strongly correlated with migration. (NQ)